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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24421906">Come, let us march against the powers of heaven</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunehasgivenup/pseuds/fortunehasgivenup'>fortunehasgivenup</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Girls (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Rewrite, F/M, Gods, Jealousy, Rebirth, Reincarnation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:49:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,898</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24421906</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunehasgivenup/pseuds/fortunehasgivenup</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rio knows it’s her the second that he lays eyes on her in the shitty surveillance footage of a goddamn grocery store robbery. Even covered, head to toe, he knows it in his gut. He’s been waiting for what seems like eons, but is more accurately somewhere around nine months. The day he’d woken up seems like it was somehow both an instant ago and an age.</p>
<p>(Love and War are reborn again and again. In this lifetime, they are Beth and Rio.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aphrodite/Ares, Beth Boland/Rio</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>306</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Come, let us march against the powers of heaven</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I jump between the equivalent Greek and Roman names so here's a quick guide to that:<br/>Mars = Ares = War (Rio)<br/>Venus = Aphrodite = Love (Beth)<br/>Hephaestus = Vulcan</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rio knows it’s her the second that he lays eyes on her in the shitty surveillance footage of a goddamn grocery store robbery. Even covered, head to toe, he knows it in his gut. He’s been waiting for what seems like eons, but is more accurately somewhere around nine months. The day he’d woken up seems like it was somehow both an instant ago and an age.</p>
<p>She doesn’t seem to know herself. Instead, she is Elizabeth Boland. Mother of four. Wife of a liar and a cheat. Not only that, but a poor one. Somehow that makes it worse.</p>
<p>She’s often married when he finds her, so it isn’t exactly a surprise. But at least Hephaestus had held some kind of talent, a bit of power of his own. Rio’s worn enough of the man’s armour to know the magic that he could work with his hands.</p>
<p>Dean Boland is no Vulcan.</p>
<p>As Rio looks around her house, he sees the traces of her in every detail. Her hands hung the frames, arranged the furniture.</p>
<p>She has a dog. A golden retriever named Buddy, for fuck’s sake. He can tell because the dog comes right up to him and bumps his head against Rio’s leg, looking for attention.</p>
<p>Rio gives it, scratching the dog and when it goes to the glass doors leading to the backyard, he lets it out.</p>
<p>He studies the kitchen, taking in the little details. Part of him wants to inspect the rest of the house, see what she’s hiding. But he holds back that instinct. Barely.</p>
<p>He can’t help it when she comes in and starts talking to the dog.</p>
<p>“Nah, we let him out.”</p>
<p>She screams, dropping her bag full of groceries and staring at them in shock.</p>
<p>Apparently she and her lady friends had been under the impression that they’d gotten away with their theft. It was foolish of them and normally, Rio would have a much less gentle approach to all of this. But there’s a not so small part of him that’s just overjoyed what this has brought him. Who it brought him.</p>
<p>She’s sitting on a chair in the kitchen, trembling, as they wait for her friends to come in. He’s still gonna get his money back though.</p>
<p>“You really don’t know,” he says. He doesn’t expect it to hurt, but it does. She doesn’t recognize him and it’s as if a part of him doesn’t recognize the whole.</p>
<p>The sister gets to the house first. There’s nothing divine about her or the friend, just what spills from Elizabeth.</p>
<p>When he leaves, his thoughts stay on her. He wants to know if she has the constellation of beauty marks on her back, the one that he’s traced a thousand times - with his fingers, his lips, his tongue. He could draw it from memory through the fabric of one of her thin floral blouses, if only she asked him.</p>
<p>He’s relieved when she leaves the pearls for him, glad that he doesn’t need to hunt for a reason to keep her close. He smiles as he runs them through his fingers, thinking of a painting. The Birth of Venus. While she hadn’t exactly been born from a shell, she has a great deal in common with a pearl.</p>
<p>They settle into a rhythm, teasing and sparring like Rio remembers from a long string of lifetimes. It’s not quite right though. He still has to hold himself back, waiting for her to wake to who she really is. He craves it more than he’s craved anything.</p>
<p>Then she’s throwing a set of keys at his face and drawing blood. It’s like she’s injected a live wire into his system, polarizing the cells of his body until each one is oriented towards her and all he wants is to grab her and bury himself in her so far that she’ll never be able to exist without him again. But she’s still not <i>her</i>. If he did what he wanted now, he would likely destroy her - Elizabeth. So he sends her away.</p>
<p>It’s better like this, he thinks to himself. She’ll wake up sooner or later and he’ll be there for her when she does.</p>
<p>——————————</p>
<p>Rio’s half mad with it when he goes to her house after she gets him arrested. He’s almost proud of her for the underhanded action. Robbing his store again, but leaving enough evidence to link it to him? It would be genius if he hadn’t spent years keeping his shit straight. They take him in, of course they do. It’s their job. But they can’t hold him much beyond a couple hours.</p>
<p>He steps in through the kitchen door, which they’re still not fucking locking - it’s like they want him to just walk in. It takes a moment for Dean to call out, “Beth, that you?”</p>
<p>Rio doesn’t say anything. He can hear her husband’s footsteps approaching the kitchen. He’s smiling when the big lug walks around the corner and sees him. Rio knows right away that he doesn’t have his phone on him. It’s obvious when his hand jerks towards his pocket, only to freeze halfway through the motion. Phone’s not there. Landlines are in the office and the kitchen. Rio is between him and both of those options.</p>
<p>“Dean, right?” Rio says, stepping towards him. He hates this man even though he’s barely even worth the attention. He’s had Elizabeth for decades at this point. He’s had her, and he’s hurt her. He’s had an actual goddess in his home and bed and he what - strayed? Rio wants to knock him to his knees and spill his blood on the floor of this stupid fucking house. Maybe then she would understand who she is. Maybe she would wake up.</p>
<p>But that won’t wake her, it’ll just push her away from him. So instead, Rio uses his fists. He’ll give it to Dean, at least the guy tries to fight back. But there’s no way for him to beat Rio, even if he wasn’t the god of war.</p>
<p>He waits for Elizabeth to come home, sitting at her table, the place where she feeds her children. He wishes that he had his sword. He’d cleave the thing in two. Or maybe he’d reduce it to splinters, not even enough to kindle a fire. She’s not the goddess of the home, has never been one for that life. To see her here, it fills him with rage.</p>
<p>But then she returns and just seeing her calms him. Not enough to stop him from shooting Dean though. It gives him far more pleasure than it should, punishing Elizabeth just as much as the man. Sometimes he hates her. Mostly he just craves her though.</p>
<p>——————————————</p>
<p>Just as he knew Elizabeth from the moment he saw her, he knows when she wakes up, when she understands who she is. Who he is to her.</p>
<p>He feels it happen across town, but he forces himself to stay still and wait for her.</p>
<p>Rio is tired of chasing. It won’t kill her to chase him for once.</p>
<p>She comes into the warehouse where he’s waiting for her and walks through all of his guys. He told them to let her through, after all.</p>
<p>“What am I?”</p>
<p>Rio shuts his laptop. “You know what we are,” he tells her.</p>
<p>“Then say it,” she demands.</p>
<p>Laughing, Rio stands and walks towards her. Faster than she can evade, he grabs her by the back of her hair and holds her in place as he bends until his face is hovering over hers. “You’re a goddess,” he whispers. “I’m a god.”</p>
<p>She swallows, and he runs his nose over her cheek. “Aphrodite,” he murmurs. “Venus. You’ve had plenty of names, Love. So have I.”</p>
<p>“War,” she says, her voice too loud for how closely pressed they are. He nods. “Why did I come here?”</p>
<p>Rio strokes her hair back. “You know,” he tells her, then kisses her with all of the affection and rage and impatience that he’s bottled up waiting for her to wake. She doesn’t hesitate.</p>
<p>It feels so good, so right, when her hands wrap around his head and shoulder to hold him close. Like he’ll let her go. He’s not sure that he could, even if she wanted him to.</p>
<p>He’d had plans, when he first realized that it was her, but they disappear with the taste of her on his lips and tongue. He breaks the kiss to spin her so that she’s facing away from him and bends her over his desk, undoing his belt with his other hand. Her hands are tugging up the back of her skirt and tugging down her panties.</p>
<p>“What are you doing to me?” she gasps. “How can this -“</p>
<p>“You know the saying,” Rio teases with his words even as he teases her with the pressure of his cockhead at her entrance. “All’s fair in love and war.”</p>
<p>Beth falls forward, curling her hands into fists when he pushes all the way in.</p>
<p>That’s what they are - love and war. She gentles his sharp edges and he keeps her from smothering the world in her affection.</p>
<p>She moans for him as he palms the back of her neck.</p>
<p>“Yes,” slips from her lips.</p>
<p>She’s pliable and soft under him and Rio loves it, loves the way that she’s already accepted who they are. What they are. The loud slap of their bodies together is drowned out by the noises that she makes, the ones that he can’t hold in.</p>
<p>He presses her against the top of his desk and chases their orgasm - it’ll be together after this long apart. He won’t accept it any other way. And Rio always wins.</p>
<p>———————————</p>
<p>Elizabeth’s all pale, creamy skin that Rio delights in leaving his mark on. Just gripping her hips tightly reddens it, so when he sinks his blunt nails into the lower curve of her ass, he knows he’s going to leave all kinds of pretty colours behind.</p>
<p>“War wounds,” he tells her when she asks what he’s doing to her back. He’s giving her beard burn, broken up by the occasional hickey.</p>
<p>“Love wounds,” Elizabeth retorts, bucking him off. He lets her and it’s worth it when she turns over so that she’s looking up at him. Rio smiles at the response, putting his hands against the sides of her face.</p>
<p>“If you say so,” he teases her before glancing down to catch a glimpse of her full breasts. There’s a bit of redness there as well and he feels smug.</p>
<p>Elizabeth looks down and sighs. “Would it kill you not to leave marks?”</p>
<p>There’s something about her tone as she says it that makes the sentiment sink like a stone in his belly. Rio grabs her hands and, circling her wrists, clamps them down on either side of her head.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>She lifts her chin. “Is it necessary for you to leave your mark on me everywhere?”</p>
<p>“Worried about what your husband might say?” Rio hisses it under his breath and when she narrows her eyes at him, his anger builds. “You are, aren’t you.”</p>
<p>“He could take my kids,” she says.</p>
<p>Rio laughs in her face. “You could destroy him with a single wish.” The charm at the end of his necklace is hanging down to rest on the centre of her chest, moving with his breathing. “I could destroy him,” he offers.</p>
<p>“Don’t.” It’s the wrong thing to say to him, and all he wants to do is tear something apart. But he won’t hurt her, so he lets go of her like he’s been burnt and gets off the bed.</p>
<p>“Rio,” she says as he pulls on his clothes, but he ignores her.</p>
<p>After a moment, she turns pleading. “Rio, don’t.” She moves to the edge of the bed and reaches out to him, but he bats her hand away.</p>
<p>“Don’t,” he snaps back at her. “You’re going to get out of my bed and go right back to his.”</p>
<p>She bristles at that. “He doesn’t sleep with me.”</p>
<p>“No?” Rio ducks his head so he’s speaking right into her face. “Are you under the same roof?”</p>
<p>“He’s the father of my children.”</p>
<p>“I don’t give a fuck,” Rio says. “You let him own you.”</p>
<p>“No one owns me,” Beth is out of the bed and shoving him back faster than he can even see, “not him, not you, no one!” He feels her power uncoiling from where it's hidden, deep inside of her. Rio lets his own rise up to remind her that she isn’t the only one who can play that game.</p>
<p>“Then why do you do what he tells you?” He grabs her face and holds it in place. “He’s your master.”</p>
<p>She slaps him. “Don’t you dare,” she snarls, shoving him back. “I hate you!”</p>
<p>“You can’t live without me,” he tells her, grabbing her arm when she goes to strike him again.</p>
<p>She gets her hand up and sinks her nails into his arm. Rio hisses, but physical pain is something that he can handle. He lets her dig them in, maintains eye contact with her the whole time. His nostrils flare and his eyes narrow, but he doesn’t flinch away from her harsh touch.</p>
<p>And then, it’s over. She blinks and she looks horrified with herself. Gasps at the trickles of blood.</p>
<p>“I’m so sorry,” she says, tears building up in her eyes.</p>
<p>“Then don’t do this to me,” Rio says, purposefully misinterpreting her apology.</p>
<p>She knows it too, but she turns her head away rather than correct him.</p>
<p>—————————————————</p>
<p>“Why is it like this?”</p>
<p>Rio hums. “Why is what like this?”</p>
<p>“Our lives.”</p>
<p>He opens his eyes and looks up at the ceiling. “I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“Are the others - do they experience this?” She presses against his side, her bare skin slightly cooler than his.</p>
<p>He knows what she means. The other gods. Are they out there, caught in these same loops? If they are, their paths have never crossed with his, not in a hundred lifetimes.</p>
<p>“I don’t think so,” he says. “And before you ask, I don’t know why.”</p>
<p>She shakes slightly with her soft giggle. “You always guess what I’m going to say.”</p>
<p>“I should hope so,” Rio rolls them so he’s caging her in. “I’ve known you long enough.”</p>
<p>That sets off another giggle, one that presses her chest against his in all kinds of interesting ways. “How long?”</p>
<p>“That I’ve known you?” Rio asks, combing his fingers through her hair to make it fan out around her on the pillow. She nods. “Since before there was time,” he says. “Since the day you came, fully formed, from the water.”</p>
<p>“And you’ve loved me just as long,” Beth replies.</p>
<p>“Fuck no.”</p>
<p>Beth’s eyes widen and her mouth drops open in shock.</p>
<p>“You were too delicate for me,” he says. “I thought you were weak and soft. But then,” he lowers his head so they’re barely a breath apart, “I learned how cruel you could be. The tribute that you demanded. The madness that you inspired. By the time wars were being fought in your name, you had what love I was capable of.”</p>
<p>“Do you think that’s why it’s just us?” she asks, trembling slightly. “Because of all the blood spilled for us, even now?”</p>
<p>Rio doesn’t know the answer to that question. It’s possible. But even then, what reason do they have for these lives that they live again and again, the ones that he can remember going back thousands of years.</p>
<p>Rio can remember Gilgamesh, the walls of Rome, the fall of Constantinople, Napoleon, and Normandy. He knows that she does too, although he thinks that she might remember those days differently. It isn’t war that sticks out in her mind, but the loves that seemed to exist despite pain and suffering.</p>
<p>She strokes his cheek. “I would miss you,” she whispers, “if you stopped coming back with me.”</p>
<p>Rio kisses her. He would tear the world apart if she disappeared. He thinks that he probably has in those lifetimes that are a little hazier, dull without the sharpness of her love.</p>
<p>She falls asleep in his arms, the way that she has for millennia. Their forms are different, they always are - no two lifetimes in the same bodies. And yet, they are always the same. She always feels like a perfect fit for his arms, his lips, his hands.</p>
<p>They’re shapeshifters, following one another through time, moulding themselves into all manners of people. In some lifetimes, it’s her that comes first, determines their forms, in others, it’s him. He has a feeling that the lives like this one - where they are just people, nothing special - are his choice. Peaceful lives, for all the chaos that the two of them bring. The lives when they are beloved by many, watched by all, those are Elizabeth’s. She craves their love, adoration.</p>
<p>It hurts, sometimes, to think about how his is not enough for her. He could give her everything that he has and still, it would not fill her endless need for love. She likely has similar thoughts, Rio reasons. After all, in every lifetime, he insists on having blood on his hands. He revels in it, can’t live without it.</p>
<p>Their hands were not made to remain clean.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>As always, thank you to neveroffanon and medievalraven for beta-ing this! If there's content that should be warned for or if you think that the warnings need to be more clear, please let me know. Someone (pynkhues?) referred to Brio as a real Mars and Venus ages ago and I wrote this, which has been sitting in my drafts for ages. </p>
<p>Title from Tamburlaine the Great, Part II, Act V Scene III by Christopher Marlowe. (Come, let us march against the powers of heaven/And set black streamers in the firmament/To signify the slaughter of the gods.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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